Seas on the Fairweather grounds were as high as Sitka's O'Connell Bridge. (Photo by Berett Wilber)

The same winds wreaking havoc on land are also a problem at sea. The state ferry Kennicott postponed a scheduled cross-gulf voyage earlier in February due to heavy weather.

Built in 1998, the Kennicott is one of the state’s newer ships. It is 385 feet long – or about one-and-a-third football fields. The Kennicott and the Tustumena are the ferry system’s two ships rated for open-ocean travel.

What kind of weather could keep it tied to the dock?

On Friday, February 3, Sitka experienced sustained winds of 53 miles per hour throughout much of the morning, and recorded a peak gust of 86 miles per hour.

Meteorologist Joel Curtis, with the National Weather Service in Juneau, says he and his colleagues have been analyzing data from the Cape Fairweather data buoy.

KCAW’s Robert Woolsey recently spoke with Curtis about the recorded sea height offshore on that Friday morning.

Curtis — Forty-eight feet, and if you want to put decimals on it, forty-eight-point-six.
KCAW – Yeah, with decimals. Like, you’re out there with a meter stick.
Curtis – That’s absolutely insane. Why don’t we say very close to fifty feet.
KCAW – No ship is going to weather it particularly well?
Curtis – No ship is going to weather it well. There’s nothing on the ocean that is going to have a good day in a fifty-foot sea – And oh, by the way, the period was seventeen seconds. That means you get hit by a fifty-foot wave every seventeen seconds.
KCAW – Wow. I’m looking out at the O’Connell Bridge right now, and I’m guessing that it’s about fifty feet high.
Curtis – I think that’s just about right for the bridge, man.
KCAW – Wow. It would be…
Curtis – Mountainous. “Mountainous” is the word.

For the record, the reported clearance under the O’Connell Bridge is 53 feet, depending on the tide.

You can check out the wave data from the Fairweather Buoy yourself.Bear in mind that the buoy data will be given in meters.

Bitty Balducci, Energy Education Intern for the Sitka Conservation Society and the Electric Department, discusses the new Energy Star rebate program the city is introducing on Friday (2-24-12) to encourage the purchase of more energy-efficient appliances. Read some Frequently Asked Questions about the program, at the City of Sitka website.

Ben Gordon and George Jones celebrate their win in Pantomime.

Sitka won the 3A team titles in each of the three categories of the competition – drama, debate, and forensics — won the overall team title, won nine individual championships, and outscored even the closest large 4A school by over twenty points.

First is full disclosure: A little over 18 years ago I contributed some DNA to this story. More on that in a moment. I also contributed some marital vows.

“I’ve been coaching twenty-five years now. We’ve had other victories, but never this decisively.”

That is Stacey Woolsey, one of Sitka’s three DDF coaches, and the architect — along with Randy Hughey — of Sitka’s debate strategy. Stefanie Ask handles the drama side of things.

“They worked so hard. It was great to watch.”

I have no relationship with Stefanie Ask, except I have had pizza with her cats.

Since this was my last opportunity to see one of my own kids in a state DDF meet, I accompanied the team to Anchorage, strictly as a spectator. I was not expecting any major story, and not really prepared to do any reporting. We’re used to hearing about Sitka’s success in DDF, and reading about the team in the Sentinel. They’re sort of like the Yankees – always in the race, often get the pennant, win the series once in a while.

This year was different. Something peaked for Sitka. In performances, especially, Stefanie Ask was seeing students move beyond just really good acting.

This happened with Emma Wilbur, a senior who took second in DI, or dramatic interpretation.

“So often, when you do something funny, you’re feeding off of laughter and applause and that kind of feedback from a room. You don’t get that with dramatic interpretation. But if you’re really pushing it emotionally, you start to feel the tension in the room rise, and I think you can feed off of that.”

The same was true of another Emma – Emma Bruhl – a sophomore competing in her first state meet, who took first in solo acting, and scored first on every ballot in every round.

Sitka’s lighter performances also took top slots: Emily Pratt with a humorous riff on the “Twilight” series; sophomore Chaya Pike took third in HI. Sophomores Ryan Apathy and Ben Gordon won with a duo interpretation of the “Calvin and Hobbes” series. Seniors Sam Woolsey and Alaire Hughey took second in duo with a darkly comic piece called “Mr. Marmalade.” Ben Gordon and George Jones took first place in mime. Ryan Apathy and Emma Bruhl took fourth. Chaya Pike and freshman Celia Lubin took fourth in duet acting.

So that’s Drama. Forensics is the art of speaking persuasively. Sitka has one competitor who so totally dominates this category, it almost takes the fun out of it for other schools. Senior Zephyr Feryok.

“Well, Zephyr is a force unto himself,” says Stacey Woolsey, laughing. “He earned more points at the state meet than seventeen schools. He took first or second in every event that he entered – Oration, Domestic Extemp, Debate – he even won Congressional Congress, which is kind of an out-event for fun. He is unstoppable. The kid is amazing.”

It should come as no surprise that Feryok and his partner, sophomore Chaya Pike, were also co-champions in debate.

But this is where the story becomes a little strange, and that DNA of mine that I was telling you about comes into play. Feryok and Pike broke into the semi-finals with my own kid, Sam, and his partner, Evan Harrington – both seniors. A third Sitka team, sophomores Ben Gordon and Ryan Apathy, also made the semis. So, after three days of debate among teams from twenty-three schools in Alaska, the tournament boiled down to four teams: three from Sitka, and the fourth from Whitestone, also known as “two-time-defending-state-champion Whitestone.”

Incredibly, this was exactly the same scenario – and the same cast — as last year, with one exception: Last year, Whitestone faced Sitka’s freshmen in the semis, and Sitka’s more experienced teams had to debate each other to get tot he final. This time, though, the semi-final bracket pitted Sam and Evan against Whitestone, and Zephyr and Chaya against teammates Ben and Ryan.

Sitka debaters "huddle" to strategize.

It never came to that, however. Sam and Evan, in their matching Blues Brothers suits, wild red hair, their briefcases, and their all-important blue Gatorade, atoned for the tough loss in 2011. Debate, in many ways, is like wrestling – everyone at this level knows the moves. It’s really about who can execute them. Sam and Evan somehow put Whitestone’s intellectual shoulders to the mat in one of the tensest semi-final debates in recent memory.

Sam Woolsey and Evan Harrington (and blue Gatorade).

“Those boys are such pure, logical debaters. There’s nothing you can throw at them that they can’t respond to. We walked out and the boys said, That wasn’t our best debate. They’re quarter-final debate was actually a lot stronger for them. And I said, Yeah, but I don’t think it needed to be, you’re that good. They had all three decisions from all three judges, and they were placed first- or second-speaker by every judge.”

And in one final coup, the Top Speaker points of the tournament went to Ben Gordon, the sophomore who took the forfeit so Sitka would be in the best position to take the title. When Ben Gordon and Ryan Apathy get to the semis next year as juniors, they will have already been there twice – and I’ll pass their parents the paper bag.

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Charles Clement

The new head of the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium says the organization is losing money, and that difficult changes are on the way.

But in a letter to SEARHC employees, CEO Charles Clement also says organization’s long-term future is positive.

The letter says SEARHC lost more than $4 million in 2011.

Clement writes that the problems did not materialize overnight, but “are the consequences of inattention to the evolving nature of health care – the business of tribal health care specifically – and a failure to effectively manage such complex issues.”

SEARHC is a nonprofit tribal health consortium that operates in 18 communities throughout Southeast Alaska. With nearly 1,000 employees, it’s the region’s largest private employer. Headquarters are in Juneau, with a large hospital and medical campus in Sitka.

Clement started work as CEO on Feb. 6. His letter says SEARHC is facing major challenges such as the rising cost of providing health care, and limited federal compact funding. That federal money makes up nearly half the organization’s $115 million budget.

Clement calls for more innovation in delivering health care, and more responsibility in recovering expenses. His letter doesn’t provide details of how that will happen. But he writes that in the upcoming weeks and months, there will be changes, some of which will be “extremely difficult and perhaps even heartwrenching.”

SEARHC spokesman Michael Jenkins declined to comment on the letter Tuesday, but said Clement would be free for an interview next week. Jenkins says the letter is meant to provide information to staff in a transparent fashion.

The situation spelled out in the letter paints a different picture than SEARHC’s most recent annual report. In 2010, the organization saw net income of nearly $600,000, up from about $350,000 in 2009.

Then-CEO Roald Helgesen wrote in the 2010 report that SEARHC exceeded its financial goals that year, watching its programs grow as the finances stayed in balance. Patient visits were up across the board, and facilities were being renovated or expanded to the tune of millions of dollars, mostly from grants and government sources. Helgesen was not immediately available for comment.

Exactly what happened in 2011 to change SEARHC’s financial picture isn’t made clear by the letter. Clement says SEARHC needs to rebuild, but he also says he’s “incredibly optimistic” about the organization’s long term future.

In less urgent times, he says he would want to engage staff on the best ways to solve the consortium’s financial issues. But this situation is critical, he says, and the sooner changes occur, the less drastic they’ll be.

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Jan Straley, center, is receiving an Ocean Leadership Award from the Alaska SeaLife Center. She's pictured here with research technicians Jennifer Cedarleaf, left, and Lauren Wild, right. (KCAW photo/Ed Ronco)

A scientist in Sitka will be honored for her work tonight in Anchorage. Jan Straley will receive an Ocean Leadership Award from the Alaska SeaLife Center. The honor is given out annually to people who have made “significant contributions to awareness and sustainability of the state’s marine resources.”

Straley is an associate professor at the University of Alaska Southeast and is being honored for her research. She’s spent the last 30 years studying behavior and populations of large whales in the North Pacific. Her current research is a collaborative effort between scientists, the government and fishermen. They’re finding ways to discourage sperm whales from picking food off of fishing gear.

Straley also serves as science director for the Sitka WhaleFest. Lily Herwald is WhaleFest’s executive director. She says Straley has been a leader in her field through her research, but also through her mentoring of other scientists, and her ability to communicate science to general audiences.

“Many people hear the word science, and they think it’s some mysterious, deep subject that they might not know about,” Herwald said. “Jan has dedicated much of her time and effort toward helping make science accessible to everyone, and to link how important the research is to our everyday lives. She’s an amazing advocate for science outreach, making it accessible to everyone.”

Straley says the award is, of course, an honor, but one that she shares.

“It feels nice, but it’s not just me, right now,” Straley said. “I’m working with a team of people, so it really is an award for everybody. Especially in terms of Whalefest. I didn’t come to that all on my own.”

The Alaska Ocean Leadership awards will be given out tonight at the Dena’ina Center in Anchorage.

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Pension bill advances in legislature. Native American tribal enrollment growing in Pacific Northwest. Anchorage man named vice chair of UA Board of Regents.